These anecdotal cases are fucked up and should lead to full studies. I'd love to see how widespread this is and how much it changes based on other factors. For example, I'm willing to hypothesize that women and poor people (of any skin color/culture) also get lower appraisals for their property. We'd probably find out that who exactly the racist appraisers are and hopefully get their licenses pulled too.

Further, I bet some of this is often due to people not going through a pre-appraisal checklist. While I'm white, I know that a lot of the things my family does to save money are about learning about the market and how to interact with it (knowing the lowest price car dealers will sell a car and insisting on it and being patient and speaking to various dealers; buying used leased cars rather than new; and going through a checklist of things to do before selling a home to increase the appraisal value and the likelihood it will sell. . . among many other things). None of this stuff is secret. If you're entertaining a purchase over $500, it is worth looking online for "life hacks" about them. I bet a lot of the savings we get are because we're white too, but a lot of salesman are colorblind when it comes to screwing people over.

I'm not saying that racism isn't actually happening here though. A fine life hack may very well be to have your white friend show off your house when getting it appraised - which is fucked up. Having said that, if that's true, absolutely do it. There are a lot of white people who think prejudice and racism suck who would be happy to do this for you just for the story; though you'd be an asshole if you don't also invite us to a BBQ at your new place too. :)